The page loaded quickly and, while I’d been expecting another simple explanation, it felt like my heart missed a beat when I saw the headline.Does this candid photo show Pierce & Hughes on a date?
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said, scrolling down to see the picture.
The ridiculousness of it hit me immediately. It was a good photo of Dom and me, but it was from our time atthe amusement park. We were the only two people clearly in the frame. We both looked like we were having a good time, laughing and smiling at each other while standing close together. I scanned through the background quickly, trying to see if Emma or Brandon was visible, when it dawned on me. The photo must have been taken when Emma had been in the bathroom and Brandon had gone off to buy a beer. Dom and I had been chatting by ourselves to kill time. I hadn’t noticed anybody taking pictures of us, but why would I? Everyone had a phone capable of taking pictures nowadays.
I skimmed the rest of the article, if you could even call it that, quickly. Nothing in it surprised me. Evidently, somebody had recognized us and snapped a photo. It described them as a “source”, which I found laughable. The only information they could give was that we seemed very close and happy to be together. They speculated that Dom and I were on a date, despite denying having ever dated. The bottom linked to a few other articles on the same site, which I presumed was mainly for advertising revenue. It certainly wasn’t because the other pages had any useful information.
I cursed under my breath again. Brandon must be livid. I didn’t want to call him and try to calm him down, but what choice did I have? If I resorted to texting, it would take way longer. I rested my finger over the call button for several seconds, building up the nerve to talk to him, before finally pressing it.
He answered on the second ring. He must have been expecting me to get back to him quickly. Maybe he’d even been staring at his phone this whole time, just waiting for a response. He didn’t bother with a greeting, instead opening the conversation by saying, “What the hell, Hazel?”
I felt guilty, even though he knew as well as I did that he had been with me the day the photo was taken. I tried to explaineverything I had rationalized to myself. “Somebody must have realized who Dom and I are and taken a picture to send in.”
“I figured that much out for myself, believe it or not.” His voice was dripping with venom. “I meant, why did I need to get sent this by one of my friends asking what happened between us?”
Whoever it was must not have very good reading comprehension, I thought. There were links to Dom and me denying that we were anything more than close friends right there. “I didn’t know it was online. I don’t go around searching for pictures of myself or trying to find out what the gossip is about the skating world.” There was no point, since it was wrong at least as often as it was right. I could interact with the subjects of the articles if I wanted to actually know what was going on.
“Well, it was fun to explain that I was with you that day to my friends,” he said bitterly. “It’s embarrassing to say that I was buying us drinks and trying to get along with your partner,” he said the word like it was a curse, “when this happened. It fucking sucks to have to explain that even with me there, other people were convincing themselves that you two must be madly in love with each other.”
“I know that it sucks,” I said. I had to force down the urge to snap at him. “It sucks that you felt like you had to do that. It sucks that somebody took the picture and just put their own spin on it. I don’t like it either, but it's something that we can't control. People just see whatever they want to see.”
There was a long pause, but I didn’t speak. It was better to let him work through things on his own instead of trying to force him to. That wouldn’t work and might only make him mad. It was getting awkward when he finally said, “It’s weird when people ship real people.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I said. I was going to say more, but he cut me off before I could continue.
“Do they not realize that you have your own lives and people you care about? Do they not trust you when you say that you aren’t dating? What the hell.” The longer he spoke, the louder his voice got.
“Iknow,” I said, stressing the ‘know’ as much as I could. “But unfortunately, they keep doing it anyway. And as annoying as it is, we just need to deal with it and ignore it.” I would suggest not looking for it, but that wouldn’t help much if his friends were gossiping about what they’d seen.
“Fine,” he snapped. After a sigh, he added, “This just blows.”
I repeatedly agreed that what he was saying was right, but that it was also out of our control. It took a lot of repeating, but eventually he calmed down enough that I no longer worried he was blaming me somehow, but the situation. At least I had skating friends who could relate to being in the public eye and hearing rumours about themselves. He didn’t have anybody other than me to talk to about how frustrating it was. I had to remember that when he got upset about rumours like this.
By the time we got off the phone, I had somehow already drunk most of my glass of wine absentmindedly. The logical part of me knew I should put the glass in the sink, but somehow I found myself pouring another glass. It had been a long and stressful day. If I didn’t deserve to relax now, nobody ever did.
Chapter 7
Chapter 7
Theincessantflickeringofthe overhead light in the lunchroom was driving me crazy. I only had a short stretch to wolf down my lunch before I had to meet with Mark. Dom and I were finally solid enough with one of the tougher lifts that he had agreed to work it into the program. We needed to run through that section of choreography and work on the flow.
I was taking giant bites of my fruit salad, listening to Seohyun describe a conversation she’d had with her parents, when my phone buzzed. The sound of the vibrations reverberated off the table. The preview of the text appeared on my lock screen.
Brandon
Hey, where are you? I thought I’d stop by during my lunch break and see you. :)
For fuck’s sake. This was the fourth time in the last two weeks that he’d shown up with no warning over his lunch break. The first time it happened, I had been thrilled. He didn’t mind me talking about work, but he hadn’t come during practice before.The closest he’d come to seeing was watching competitions on TV. At the notification that he was outside, I’d hurried to see him and show him in.
“What are you doing here?” I’d asked. I grabbed the stray strands of hair that the wind was blowing into my face with one hand while my other arm wrapped around my stomach self-consciously. My clothes were still slightly sweaty and I only had mascara on. If I’d known he was coming, I would’ve freshened up.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he had said. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around awkwardly. I understood his discomfort. There had been little overlap between the two parts of my life.
Standing on my tiptoes, I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “It’s nice that you came. Come on in. I’ll give you a quick tour.”
His eyes darted around as we walked through the building, not speaking while I pointed out all the rooms we passed and who everybody was. The uncharacteristic quiet put me on edge. I did all the talking until we stopped and stood at the glass that allowed us to look out onto the rink without freezing. “Where’s the rest of your… team? I hope I didn’t get in the way of anything.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke. Instead, he fixated on some point in the distance behind me.
I glanced behind me to see what had caught Brandon’s attention. Presumably, he was counting Mark and Olga as part of that team. “Dom is getting measured for his costumes. The rest of us have been eating. Dom might not be happy that I ate my entire lunch, though, since we’re working on some new lifts later.”
